The day was cloudy and dark with occasional heavy rain though not cold. I occupied myself as usual. Finished the third Olynthiac of 146Demosthenes. I propose now to devote some time to a careful review of them—So that I may know them at any time at sight, without difficulty in construction. They are all specimens of a style but very little known in our day. The concise, persuasive, popular style. I wonder that somebody or other has not studied this manner for use in the present day. Our haranguing style is very indifferent. Read some numbers of the Federalist upon the arrangement of the Senate, and then examined an old volume of Debates in the Convention of Massachusetts that diverted me.1

Afternoon, read the eleventh Book of the letters to Atticus, which is another scene of trepidation after the defeat of the Pompeian party. Who would have been Cicero with all his glory and all his weaknesses? For my part I should prefer to remain what I am, a quiet, inoffensive mortal. Read Bacon’s Essay on Masques and Shows.

Evening with the ladies, after which I continued Gillies, and read two of Addison’s Essays upon the Imagination.